


Know Thy Enemy

by SilenceIsGolden15



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo 2k19 [22]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Allura has PTSD, Ambushes and Sneak Attacks, Apologies, Fantastic Racism, Foster Kid Keith (Voltron), Galra Keith (Voltron), Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Keith (Voltron) has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Protective Pidge | Katie Holt, Protective Shiro (Voltron), Sad Keith (Voltron), Self-Esteem Issues, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:34:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25073212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilenceIsGolden15/pseuds/SilenceIsGolden15
Summary: “This is ridiculous,” Shiro said with surprising vehemence. Keith was still looking at the floor, but he saw Shiro’s boots approach. “Allura, we both know that Keith would never do something like that.”“Do we?” Allura shot back.“Uh, yeah, we do?” Pidge chimed in. “We know Keith. He’s one of us. He wouldn’t betray us.”“Yeah,” agreed Hunk nervously. “He might have a Galra great-uncle or whatever, but he’s been with us since the beginning.”“The Red Lion did choose him, Princess,” Coran murmured, but that only got him a scoff.“The Lions have been fooled before.”It was getting hard to breathe.
Relationships: Allura & Coran (Voltron), Allura & Keith (Voltron), Keith & Shiro (Voltron)
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo 2k19 [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1554010
Comments: 24
Kudos: 482
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo





	Know Thy Enemy

_ Brrt! Brrt! Brrt!  _

Keith jolted awake to a white hand over his head. He reacted before he thought, rolling to the side as the metal fist slammed into the pillow. Whipping his blade out of its sheath, he threw himself back around, driving it into the side of the drone’s head up to the hilt, letting the momentum flip both him and it onto the floor. 

_ Brrt! Brrt! Brrt!  _

The drone was sparking around his blade. His room was dark except for the throbbing red light that faded in and out, in and out, as the alarm rang through Keith’s skull. He’d never seen these lights before, and there were drones in the Castle. 

_ Brrt! Brrt! Brrt!  _

Keith yanked his blade from the drone’s head and got to his feet. The hallway was empty when he took a peek out of his bedroom door, almost eerily so with the red lights, and he kept his step light as he slipped into the hallway, knife at the ready. 

_ Brrt! Brrt! Brrt!  _

He started to make his way down the hall, proceeding as carefully as he could make himself go with adrenaline thrumming in his veins. 

The alarm vibrated through the metal walls, through the floor and the soles of his boots, making his bones rattle. They were good for waking people up, but not so great for hearing. There was only a slight pause between bursts of sound-- it was during one such pause that he detected the slight  _ swish  _ of a door opening. 

Keith stopped dead in his tracks, right as another drone’s arm shot out of the room he was walking by. It groped at the empty air until Keith grabbed it by the wrist and pulled it forward, exposing it up to the shoulder, where his blade cleaved the arm from the rest of the drone. 

He was still learning how to control his blade, but this time it chose to elongate at exactly the right moment and allowed him to stab it directly through the drone’s torso. 

It dropped with a loud clang. Panting for breath, Keith peered into the darkness, trying to determine whose room it was. Between the sudden wake up call and the adrenaline surge, it took him a minute to put the pieces together, but after a few seconds he recognized the blue string lights and walls covered in photographs-- it was Lance’s room. But Lance himself was nowhere in sight. 

More clanging and a grunt drew his attention back to the hall. The next door in the hall opened and out came another drone, this one stumbling with a bedraggled, angry Pidge stuck to its back like a koala. 

For a moment Keith just stared. With a muttered curse Pidge leaned her weight backwards until the drone slammed her into the wall; probably trying to get better stability to mess with its wiring, but Keith had a better idea. 

“Pidge,” he shouted as he prepared to sprint, “Drop!”

Pidge obeyed without question and let go of the drone. She plummeted to the ground, allowing Keith to cleave its head clean off. 

It sparked at the neck as it tumbled to the side, leaving Pidge smiling up at him in relief. “Oh, Keith, thank God.” She was still in her green pajamas, glasses missing and hair a mess. 

“Do you know what’s going on?” he asked as he helped her to her feet. 

“No idea. The alarm woke me up, and when I saw the drone I thought it was a nightmare, but I’m guessing that’s not the case.” 

“Probably not,” agreed Keith. “Come on, we need to find the others.”

Pidge nodded gravely and followed him without complaint. Keith pointed them in the direction of the bridge-- he figured that Allura or Shiro must still have been awake when the attack began and triggered the alarm. He hoped it was Shiro. As jarring as it was for him to wake up to drones, he could only imagine how Shiro would’ve reacted. 

Together they went down one hallway, then another. It wasn’t until the third turn that they saw any sign of life. That sign just so happened to be a laser blast soaring past Keith’s head, singeing his bangs as he pulled back behind the wall. 

“Watch it, Lance!” he shouted, and the blasts paused. 

“Keith? Is that you?”

“Yeah! Don’t shoot!” Carefully, Keith peeked around the corner. There were five drones congregated in front of the bridge door, piled on top of each other as they all tried to force their way in. The door was open, just enough for the muzzle of Lance’s bayard, and several of the drones were missing arms, like they’d tried to reach inside and been violently rebuffed. 

There was a clang and a clatter, then the shooting resumed, making Keith back up again. 

“Sorry!” he heard Lance cry. “I have to keep them off the door!”

That was fine. Keith already knew what to do. 

“Uh oh,” said Pidge in a low voice. “I know that look.”

“Just stay behind me,” he answered, and without another thought, Keith threw himself around the corner. 

It wasn’t hard to use a drone as cover as he dashed up behind it. The metal that made up its body creaked and moaned as Keith’s blade tore through it, slicing it in half with no inconsiderable amount of force. Before the pieces could fall he was upon his next target, grabbing a one-armed drone by the shoulder and throwing it into the wall before running it through. 

“Keith, duck!”

He dropped to one knee. Lance’s shot went through the head of the drone who had been advancing with its blaster charging, taking advantage of his position. Keith somersaulted between the legs of the final drone and plunged his sword into the center of its chest. 

“Go, Pidge!”

Pidge dashed past him, a streak of green as she ran into the safety of the bridge. After making sure there were no more drones in the hall, Keith followed. 

To his relief, everyone else had already gathered there. Lance stood at the ready with his bayard. Shiro stood just behind him, metal hand glowing. If he looked to the right he was able to see Hunk, bayard-less but ready to tackle any intruder, and to his left, Coran was the same. Allura was at her podium, tapping away on her screens, back to the door. Everyone but Shiro and Allura were in their pajamas. 

“Are there any left, Princess?” Shiro called to Allura as Hunk swept Pidge up in a relieved hug. 

“The scan came back negative,” said Allura tensely. “But I’ll run another, just to be certain.” 

Everyone relaxed from their fighting stances. Keith’s blade shrank back into a knife, which he slid back into its sheath as he headed over to Shiro. 

“Hey, you alright?”

Shiro attempted a smile. He was still worried, but after all of that, Keith wasn’t surprised. “Yeah, I’m ok. You?” 

“Not hurt,” Keith confirmed, then let out a breath and dropped into his Paladin seat. “What even was all that?”

Shiro shrugged and glanced at Allura. “Not sure. Allura and I were planning and we got an alert that one of the airlocks had opened. The closest one to the bridge, actually-- we barely had time to hit the alarm and close the doors.”

Keith leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Now that he wasn’t fighting for his life, he was starting to feel the effects of being woken up in the middle of the night. 

“What?” Pidge questioned from across the room. “How did that happen? The empire doesn't have the tech to hack me-- they would’ve needed the access codes.”

No one had the answer to that. Someone’s footsteps tapped across the floor, coming closer, and when Keith opened his eyes, he found Allura standing over him, wearing a severe expression with her hands on her hips. 

He immediately sat up straight. Things had been… tense between them lately, to put it lightly. If she had a task for him to do, it would go better for both of them if he didn’t give her a reason to get mad. 

But she didn’t have a request. Instead she said, spitting the words out through ground teeth, “I’ll give you one chance to tell me the truth.”

Keith’s breath caught. There had been butterflies in his stomach since Allure came up to him, and their wings had just become razor sharp. With his tight throat, all he could manage was a stuttered, “W-what?”

Allura scowled and crossed her arms. “I’m only going to ask once. Keith, did you have anything to do with this attack?”

Keith’s jaw dropped. He almost thought it was a joke-- the Princess had been giving him the cold shoulder for the last few weeks, sure, but she’d never gone so far as to accuse him of treachery-- at least, not out loud. 

But it wasn’t a joke. Allura’s face was set in stone, and he immediately dropped his eyes. Back in his Garrison days he could stare down Iverson with nary a flinch, but that was different. That was when he didn’t know he deserved it. 

“What?” Hunk squealed in the background. Keith felt the weight as everyone’s eyes turned to them and Hunk scurried over. “Allura, you think Keith was the one who let them in?”

Surprised gasps rang across the room. Shiro said the Princess’ name reproachfully as the rest of the team closed in around them. Keith’s skin started to prickle, how it always did when he was cornered, and he took the calculated risk of getting out of his chair so that he’d have somewhere to run. 

Allura didn’t acknowledge any of them. She just narrowed her eyes and gave a clipped, “Well?”

Trying to swallow the lump in his throat, Keith shook his head. But Allura’s eyes narrowed even more, so he forced himself to say, “No-- no, I-- I wouldn’t. I would never.”

Allura didn’t look convinced. 

“This is ridiculous,” Shiro said with surprising vehemence. Keith was still looking at the floor, but he saw Shiro’s boots approach. “Allura, we both know that Keith would never do something like that.” 

“Do we?” Allura shot back. 

“Uh, yeah, we do?” Pidge chimed in. “We know Keith. He’s one of us. He wouldn’t betray us.”

“Yeah,” agreed Hunk nervously. “He might have a Galra great-uncle or whatever, but he’s been with us since the beginning.”

“The Red Lion did choose him, Princess,” Coran murmured, but that only got him a scoff. 

“The Lions have been fooled before.”

It was getting hard to breathe. 

“Come on, Allura.” Even Lance getting in on it, for reasons Keith couldn’t fathom. “I don’t think Mullet is good enough of an actor to pull something like that off.”

Keith snuck a glance, but Allura looked just as suspicious as ever. 

“The Galra can be very good manipulators.”

Shiro spoke up again. “Allura, this doesn’t make any sense. If you’d just stop and think--”

“I will not ignore the most likely suspect,” Allura retorted hotly. “The only people who knew our location and had the access code are the seven of us, one of whom just  _ happens  _ to have Galra blood.”

Voices exploded all around, and if Keith hadn’t been frozen, he would have cringed at the shockwave. After only a few seconds Allura’s rang out, silencing them all. 

“Enough!” The Princess’ eyes locked with Keith’s again, and hoo boy. He’d gotten some heavy glares from her in the last few weeks, but this one was a step above. This one felt like it could burn right through him and freeze him solid all at once. 

“I didn’t do it,” Keith said, injecting as much sincerity as he could into his tone. He felt like a kid again, trying to convince his foster parents that it really wasn’t him who broke that window, but knowing with every word that he wasn’t going to be believed. They’d already made up their minds-- and so had Allura. 

Allura huffed. “Fine. If you won’t admit it, we’ll just have to find it ourselves. Pidge, pull up the Castle cameras.”

“What? No.” Pidge folded her arms too, ready to get into it with all of her four foot ten fury. “This is stupid, and a waste of time! We should be sweeping for trackers, not looking through hours of video footage of one of our own teammates!”

“If you won’t, I’ll do it myself,” Allura spat at her. 

Everyone started arguing again, this time with Allura in the center of it, and Keith’s stomach twisted into knots. They couldn’t afford to be fighting right now-- the Galra knew where they were, it was only a matter of time before they launched another attack. That thought gave him the courage to speak up. 

“Guys, guys, stop! Stop it!” 

Just like at his Blade trials, the fighting came to a stop, everyone turning to stare at him-- just like after the trials. His gut knotted even tighter at the memory. 

“It’s ok,” he managed to say after a few shallow breaths. “Allura’s right to be cautious. Just do what she wants.”

He thought that would please her, but Allura just sniffed and turned up her nose. “If you think being compliant will change my mind…”

Keith looked back at the floor. Allura sighed. 

“Fine. But I don’t want you here being a distraction.”

“What if there’s another attack?” Shiro still looked royally pissed off, but by some miracle hadn’t raised his voice yet. “It would be safer to stay together.”

“Not if he’s the traitor,” said Allura. 

“He’s  _ not,”  _ Shiro insisted back. 

Keith wouldn’t lie-- it hurt when she called him that. Before they met the Blade, he’d really thought he was starting to build something in the Castle and the people who lived in it. Maybe even a home someday. Then it had all fallen to pieces, reopening the old wound that had only just begun to heal over. But it didn’t matter. Allura had lost far more than he had. 

“Shiro, stop.”

Shiro turned, giving him a look somewhere between wounded and worried, which made Keith wince. The last thing they needed right now was a distracted Black Paladin. 

“I’ll just go to my room,” he continued quietly. “Allura can lock it remotely so you don’t have to worry about me going anywhere.”

“We’re not locking you up!” Pidge exclaimed, but Allura ignored her as she considered Keith’s words. 

She stared him down for another second or two, then: “Very well.” Shiro tried to speak up again, but was also ignored as the Princess cast an imperious eye over the room, her gaze eventually landing on Coran. “Coran, will you please escort Keith back to his quarters?”

Coran gulped and just barely whispered, “Yes, Princess.” Before he could take so much as a step Shiro moved between them, back to Coran and looking down at Keith with so much concern on his face that it hurt. 

“You don’t have to do this, Keith.”

Keith mustered up his best attempt at a smile. “It’s ok, Shiro. It’s only for a few hours.”

Shiro’s eyes echoed the fear Keith didn’t want to acknowledge, so he looked at everyone else instead. Pidge was seething. Hunk was somewhere between heartbreak and anxiety. Lance looked unsettled, and Coran had gone pale and grim. Allura looked just as suspicious as before, but now with a tinge of vindication. 

Ignoring how his heart was beating out of his chest, Keith wrapped his arms around himself and looked at Coran, who got the hint and started to move towards the door. Shiro’s expression twisted with grief. 

“I’m going too,” he said, shooting Allura a look that said ‘just try to stop me’. She just rolled her eyes, so Shiro put a hand on Keith’s shoulder to steer him to the door. 

“You don’t have to,” Keith whispered as the group parted for them. Shiro just squeezed his shoulder and said nothing. Coran followed them out. 

None of them said anything on the walk back to his room. The eerie red lighting was gone, but that only served to illuminate the drone parts strewn across the floor. The sight of them only boosted the dread that was building with every step. 

Allura really thought he was the one responsible. She really thought that he was a traitor. It made his eyes burn, but he blinked the tears away. There would be plenty of time for that later, when the door was locked and the flashbacks started to roll in. 

Besides, he should be grateful. Allura could’ve thrown him in a cell instead. 

They reached his bunk. Coran tapped the reader to open the door, then he and Shiro gasped, and Keith sighed. He’d forgotten about the drone he’d left on the floor. 

“Damn it,” he muttered. “Shiro, will you help me with this?”

Shiro immediately followed him into the room. But even as they lifted it by its arms and legs, Shiro still looked alarmed. 

“I didn’t realize they’d gotten to the bunks,” he said. 

Keith grunted with effort as they tossed the robot into the hall, just barely missing Coran, and simply answered, “Yup.”

Then there was a moment where they just stood, looking at each other. Coran waited awkwardly in the hallway, apparently able to sense whatever emotional scene was about to occur, which Keith desperately wished didn’t have to happen. It would all be so much easier if Shiro would just let Allura do what she needed to do. If he’d just let Keith pull into himself and disappear, like Allura wanted him to. But he’d promised to never give up on him, and Shiro didn’t break his promises. 

All of a sudden Shiro reached out and dragged Keith into a hug. The tears instantly sprang back into his eyes, but he squeezed them shut and tried to focus on the feeling of Shiro’s arms around him; the warmth, the security. 

Fuck, this was going to suck. 

“It’s not going to be for long,” he murmured into Keith’s ear. “Try to remember that, ok otouto?”

Keith nodded into his shoulder. 

“We’ll talk some sense into Allura. I promise.”

Shiro gave him one last good squeeze, then reluctantly pulled away. By some miracle, Keith managed to let him go and avoid embarrassing himself, rather than clinging to Shiro the way most of his brain wanted to. 

“I’ll be back,” he said with a tiny smile. Keith couldn’t quite find it in himself to return it. Then Shiro stepped out into the hall to join Coran, who gave him a much thinner smile that looked more like a grimace. 

“Everything will work out, Number Four.”

Keith nodded. The door began to slide closed, and he bit the inside of his cheek as he watched Shiro’s face get thinner and thinner until the doors clicked together. He heard the electronic whir of the lock and let out a shaky breath. 

Then he was alone. 

* * *

“This is fucking ridiculous.” Pidge sat with her arms firmly crossed, refusing to even look at her screen. “I am not going to treat Keith like a criminal. We all know he had nothing to do with this. It’s a waste of time when we could be finding out what really happened!”

“Pidge is kinda right,” Hunk said a bit nervously, tapping his fingertips together. “Can’t one of us do a scan for trackers while you guys do that?”

“No,” said Allura firmly. “RIght now Keith is our most likely suspect.”

“No he isn’t!” Pidge exploded, slamming her hands down on the arms of her Paladin seat; a rather childish display, in Allura’s opinion. “How many times does he have to risk his life for you before you get over it?”

Allura clenched her jaw until it hurt. The sickly heat of betrayal had been churning in her stomach for hours, and it was getting harder to control the tremble of her hands. Soon Pidge wouldn’t be the only one losing her temper. 

The opening of the bridge door saved her from trying to remain civil. It was Shiro and Coran-- finally, someone who would understand. 

Shiro, on the other hand, looked like a stone statue carved with fury. “Let’s get this over with.”

Pidge shot him an affronted look. “What? Shiro, you can’t possibly be ok with this!”

“I’m not.” Shiro crossed his arms and set his jaw. “So let’s get it done quickly.”

Allura exhaled through her teeth. Everyone but Coran was angry with her-- even Lance had been avoiding her eye. But she couldn’t expect them to understand. They hadn’t had their entire culture erased from the universe. 

“Go back at least a movement,” she said to Pidge, who was reluctantly opening the Castle’s video feeds. “I want to see every time he accessed the Castle’s interface.”

“That’s gonna take a while,” said Lance from the back of the room. And just for a moment, Allura’s royal facade crumbled. 

“I don’t care how long it takes!” she shouted, whirling on a shocked Lance. “Altea was betrayed by a Galra once before, and I will not let it happen again!”

Silence. Allura was trembling, her skin flashing cold-hot-cold. And everyone was just standing there, looking at her like-- like--

Like they pitied her.

The Princess closed her eyes. Flames danced in the darkness, but she swallowed hard and forced them away. Now was not the time for this. She had to keep herself together, or the rest of them would fall for the Galra’s tricks and Zarkon would win. Again.

She couldn’t let that happen.

“Go back a movement,” she repeated, much more calmly. “You might be right. But I need to be sure.” When she opened her eyes again, she found the expressions around her to be slightly more sympathetic; except for Shiro, who didn’t seem moved. 

“Just do it, Pidge,” he said, stubbornly not looking at Allura. 

Pidge sighed. “Fine, but I don’t have to like it.” 

* * *

The first thing Keith did was crank the lights as bright as they would go. Then he got his jacket off the wall and wrapped himself in it. The weight was familiar and soothing, bringing him down from the panic climbing up his ribs.

He was fine. He wasn’t in the tiny closet in the Donovans’ house, or the basement at the Walters’, or under his bed in the group home, hiding from the older boys. He was in the Castle, in the light.

He couldn’t tell himself he was safe. No place was truly safe, and if Allura decided he was guilty, being Red’s Paladin wouldn’t be enough to save him. 

But for now he was ok. As long as he didn’t think about the locked door behind him. 

For a while he paced, trying to work out the nervous energy, but every time he saw the door it would spike again. By then his eyes were burning from weariness rather than tears, so he lay down and did his best to fall asleep, with mixed results. 

When he lay with his back to the door it blocked the lights, but the knowledge that someone could come in without him seeing was too much for him to actually fall asleep. If he lay on his other side he felt secure, or secure enough, but the lights would turn the underside of his eyelids red and keep him awake. 

The best compromise he could manage was to face the door and wrap an arm around his head to block the lights. It wasn’t perfect, but he could doze, at least. 

Keith wasn’t sure exactly how long he lay there. It was a while-- long enough for his exhaustion to start pulling him down. 

He was on the precipice of slumber when he heard the door hum. Instantly he was wide awake, throwing himself upright so quickly he gave himself a head rush. 

When his vision stopped tilting, he was relieved to see Shiro standing in the doorway. He had a pouch of water in his hand and a gentle, tired smile on his face.

“Hey,” Keith murmured. “How’s it going out there?”

Shiro’s smile dimmed a bit, but he propped it up and crossed the room to sit beside him. 

“Slowly,” he said, passing the water to Keith, who immediately began sucking it down. He’d only just realized how thirsty he was. “Allura’s being… thorough.”

Keith bit his lip, but he couldn’t quite hold in the question. “So I can’t come out yet, can I?”

“Not yet,” Shiro sighed, then laid a reassuring hand on Keith’s shoulder. “But we’re working on it. Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried,” lied Keith. Shiro gave him a knowing look. Keith looked away. 

“Keith… you know this is wrong, right?”

Keith shrugged and drank some more water. 

“I mean it. She shouldn’t be treating you this way.”

Now it was Keith’s turn to sigh. “I keep telling you-- it’s fine. Allura lost everything to the Galra. Of course she’s going to be suspicious.” 

Shiro squeezed his shoulder until Keith met his eye. He’d lost his smile and now looked solemn-- disconcertingly so. 

“I don’t mean just this situation.”

Keith shifted uncomfortably. It didn’t feel right, judging Allura like this. She’d lost her home and her father. Keith knew how that felt, and in the grand scheme of things, what did it matter if the Princess was mean to him? She was entitled to it, and the bottom line was that he was Galra. He had evil in his veins, and Allura was already being gracious enough to let him stay, a kindness that hadn’t always been given. It wouldn’t be fair to force her to be nice to him on top of it.

“Shiro--”

“No, listen to me. Allura’s been through a lot, that much is true. But it doesn’t give her the right to be cruel to you.”

“We have bigger things to worry about,” Keith said, shrugging Shiro’s hand off. “Besides, Voltron was betrayed by a Galra once before. She’s right to be cautious.”

“But Red chose you,” Shiro tried to say, but Keith just huffed and looked away, shaking his head. 

“Black chose Zarkon.”

He felt the mattress shift as Shiro tensed up. But before Keith’s fight or flight could kick in, Shiro spoke, spitting out the words through ground teeth. 

“Do  _ not  _ compare yourself to him. You are  _ nothing  _ like Zarkon.”

Keith held very still, not even breathing. He knew he didn’t have to be afraid of Shiro, but as with so many times before, his body acted before his brain caught up. 

After another moment of tense silence, Shiro exhaled for so long he seemed to deflate, the only thing left being weariness. 

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I just hate having to watch this happening. To see her treating you like you’ve already switched sides when you haven’t done anything wrong.”

All Keith could think to say was another repetition of, “It’s ok. I’ve had worse.”

“I know. But that doesn’t make it fair.”

For a few minutes the two of them just sat there, then, clapping his hands on his knees, Shiro said, “I should be getting back,” and got to his feet. When he looked down at Keith, his eyes were soft. “Just a little while longer, ok?”

Keith managed a wobbly smile and nodded. Shiro patted his shoulder one more time, gave his hair an affectionate ruffle, and left.

The door locked behind him. 

* * *

“Go back another quintant.”

Lance let out a groan and slid down in his Paladin seat. He’d seemed sympathetic to her cause in the beginning, but that goodwill had dwindled quickly once Allura reached the end of his attention span. Grinding her teeth, the Princess was about to repeat herself, but Hunk spoke first. 

“We’ve gone back eight quintants, Allura,” he said, sounding on the verge of annoyed. “There’s nothing here.”

“Yeah,” Lance chimed in. “All Mullet does with the Castle computer is turn the training deck on and off. He’s not exactly a tech whiz.”

“In battle, you must never underestimate your enemy.”

The aura of the room immediately changed. Allura saw Pidge’s jaw drop and Shiro’s clench and braced herself, only for Coran to swoop in, taking Allura by the elbow in a gentle grip. 

“A word in private, Princess.”

Allura let him guide her out to the hallway, but inside she was fuming. The Paladins were all so young and naive; even Shiro didn’t know what the Galra were really capable of. They didn’t understand what danger they were in, how much effort she put into keeping them all safe. It was  _ infuriating.  _ But at least she had Coran. 

But when Coran stopped leading and turned to face her, that security was dashed by the sadness in his eyes. 

“Oh, Coran, not you too.” She wasn’t surprised to feel tears beginning to rise. 

Coran only looked sadder. “Princess,” he began, terribly gently. “You know that I understand how you feel. I was there when Altea fell. I felt Zarkon’s betrayal.”

Allura nodded miserably. She knew where this was going, and she wasn’t happy about it. 

“I know how painful it is. But we have evidence that proves Keith wasn’t behind this attack.”

“I don’t trust him, Coran,” she replied hotly. “We discover he’s Galra, and a couple of movements later the Castle is invaded? You can’t tell me that’s a coincidence!”

“Allura,” said Coran, his expression becoming pleading, “We can’t start turning on each other. The only person who benefits from mistrust in the ranks is Zarkon.”

“The only reason any of this is happening is because Father trusted Zarkon too much!”

“Princess.” Coran took her hands firmly in his own, meeting her eye and refusing to let her look away. “Keith is not Zarkon.”

Allura’s eyes stung. She ducked her head, biting the inside of her cheek to keep them in, but she failed. The tears slid down her cheeks and dripped off her chin; Coran cooed her name and pulled her into his arms. 

Pressing her cheek to his shoulder, Allura whispered through the tears, “I’m so scared, Coran.”

“I know, Princess. So am I.”

For a few doboshes they stood there together as all of the tension she’d been holding inside unravelled. Once her breathing began to slow Coran pulled back, giving her an encouraging smile while wiping the tears away with his thumbs. He waited, not making her move until she nodded. 

When they returned to the bridge the Paladins were all huddled around Pidge’s seat, staring intently at something. 

“Paladins?” 

All of them jolted at the sound of her voice. Pidge kept herself facing the screen, refusing to look at her. Hunk and Lance exchanged a sheepish glance. Only Shiro acknowledged her directly, and even then it was only a jerk of his head and a few words. 

“We found something.”

He made room for her when she moved towards the group. Pidge’s screens were no longer showing video feeds; now they showed a white outline of the Castle, with a single spot on the port side thruster flashing red. 

“I did a scan for bugs and trackers,” Pidge said stiffly. “Found this.”

Allura took a deep breath. She could feel everyone’s eyes on her, especially Shiro’s, all of them waiting to see if she would insist on Keith being guilty, or move on. She wasn’t about to disappoint them again. 

“Go back to the last time we were planet-side,” she said, bracing one hand on the back of Pidge’s chair. “See if anyone went near that part of the Castle.”

Hunk and Lance let their jaws drop. From the corner of her eye the Princess could still see Shiro, watching her carefully. If Pidge was surprised, she didn’t let it show, instead complying with the order and going back five quitants, when they were on Olkarion. The visit hadn’t been long, only a few vargas, so there wasn’t much video to analyze. 

“There,” Pidge said after only a few doboshes, pointing at the person in the video who had just rounded the port side of the parked Castle. He was Olkari, as Allura had assumed, but she didn’t recognize his face. 

“Are we sure it was him?” asked Shiro. 

Pidge nodded without hesitation. “He’s the only person who went near the port side the entire time we were there. And the Galra couldn’t have hacked into my system to get the airlock codes, but a rogue Olkari definitely could have.”

Allura nodded thoughtfully. It was hard to imagine an Olkari ratting them out to Zarkon, but no harder than it was to imagine Keith doing it. 

“Pidge, get an image of his face and send it to Coran. Coran, would you please establish a connection with Ryner? If there’s a traitor on Olkarion, she needs to hear of it immediately.”

“At once, Princess.” Coran gave her a cheeky salute, but the smile on his face was genuine and proud before he hurried away. Allura held that smile in her mind as she turned to the Paladins. 

“Hunk, Lance, please get your armor and remove the tracker as quickly as you can.”

Hunk nodded quickly, already pleased, and Lance’s posture relaxed. “Will do.”

“Pidge, once you’ve gotten the image to Coran, do you think you could look through the Castle’s systems and make sure the rogue didn’t access anything else?”

“Sure,” answered Pidge, dismissing the video from her screen. “On it.”

Finally, Allura turned to Shiro. His face was unreadable, but she told herself that the set of his jaw wasn’t quite as severe as it had been before. 

“And we should go talk to Keith.”

Shiro nodded and extended his arm towards the door. 

“Lead the way.”

* * *

Keith regretted not decorating his bunk. The utilitarian bareness, while practical, gave him no distraction or entertainment option. So for the last few hours he’d just laid on his back and stared at the ceiling. Even sleep had deserted him. All he could do was lay there and wonder what was happening on the bridge-- and hope that whatever it was, it wouldn’t end too badly for him. Just like at the Donovan house, when Jenny would come home from a bad day at work and he’d hide in his room, trying not to attract her attention--

_ No.  _ Keith sat up and shook his head hard, trying to knock the thoughts loose. No, he wasn’t there anymore. He was in the Castle. He was fine. 

But the moment he stopped focusing on those words, his traitorous brain went right back to those awful evenings. Lying on his bed as twilight grew, hearing the dreaded rumble of the garage door, his stomach turning to stone. The sound of high heels on the kitchen floor. The slamming of her purse onto the table. Then her voice, loud and pitched just right to tear through his head as painfully as possible--

Gasping for breath, Keith got to his feet and staggered across the room to the bathroom. He collapsed against the sink, and with shaking hands, cranked on the cold water and splashed his face. The cold helped bring him back into his own skin; still bent over the sink, Keith took a few slow, deep breaths. 

He was fine. He was in the Castle. In his bunk. Shiro was there. As long as Shiro was there, nothing would happen to him. 

Just breathe. In. And out. 

Keith raised his eyes to the mirror. The person looking back at him didn’t look like they were having a good time-- pale and tired, eyes tinged red from blinking away tears. He straightened up, letting the water drip off his chin and onto the counter, but didn’t look away from his reflection. Was it just his imagination, or did his skin look darker in some places? 

No, no, it was nothing. Just a shadow from the light falling on his cheekbones. It was nothing. He was fine. 

_ I’m fine,  _ he repeated to himself, his wet hands rising to his hair to tug, using the sensation to keep him grounded.  _ I’m fine.  _

Even with all of the screaming going on in his head, Keith still heard the quiet knock on his bedroom door. He spun around, heart already beating faster as he frantically dried himself off before rushing back to where he should be. The knock was softer than he would expect from Shiro or Coran, which could only mean one thing.

His fears were confirmed when the door slid open to reveal the Princess standing on the other side. At least this time he was standing. He hadn’t liked how she loomed over him before-- this way he wouldn’t have to look up at her like a misbehaving child. 

Already, though, the Princess seemed less inclined to loom. Her posture was small, one hand loosely gripping the other elbow. This time it was Allura avoiding Keith’s eyes, her choosing to look at the ground rather than him. Behind her was Shiro, a slightly hopeful expression on his face. 

That was what gave him the courage to speak first. “Um… Princess? Are you…”

Her head rose at the sound of his voice. She still looked uneasy, but she put her shoulders back and met his gaze with a certain determination. 

“We figured out who did it,” she said quietly. “It was a rogue Olkari. The others are taking care of it now.”

Keith couldn’t help his relieved sigh. They’d figured it out-- he wouldn’t have to leave or be punished. 

_ Thank God.  _

“So,” he said, still with slight hesitance. “That means…”

Allura gave him one of the small smiles he hadn’t seen in weeks. “Yes, you’re free to go.” Then the smile drooped, her lips pressing together. “And I owe you an apology.”

Keith opened his mouth to deny it, to repeat the excuses that had been looping in his head, but Shiro shook his head at him. So Keith shut it again and waited for Allura. Her brow was furrowed, as if in confusion or irritation, and her eyes had slid off of him again, but Keith didn’t mind. It was easier for both of them that way. 

Eventually, Allura found the words she was looking for. 

“I haven’t been very accepting of you these last few movements. I’ve been cruel, really.”

Over her head, Shiro’s mouth pulled to one side in a ‘you don’t say?’ expression. Keith was too astonished to laugh, internally or otherwise, because Allura actually looked like she meant it. 

“Ever since you learned you had Galra blood, I’ve wanted to be angry at you. I’ve wanted to hate you, like I hate Zarkon. It took until today for me to remember that you aren’t him.”

“Princess--”

She held up a hand to stop him. “Just listen, please.” 

So, crossing his arms for comfort, Keith listened. 

“It’s true that Zarkon was once the Black Paladin, and that he betrayed Voltron.” She blinked rapidly as her eyes grew glossy. “But you are not Zarkon. You’re Keith, our Red Paladin, and I’m sorry it took me so long to come to my senses. I’m just… sorry.”

For a moment the two of them just looked at each other. Keith didn’t know what to say-- he was still reeling. He’d spent the last few hours telling himself to be grateful if he was allowed to stay, if Allura let him keep flying Red-- and then she comes in with  _ this?  _

Error 404. Keith.exe has stopped working. 

A tear escaped and streaked down Allura’s cheek. Without the slightest hesitation she surged forward and threw her arms around his neck. Keith, awkward as ever, froze. 

“I’m so sorry,” she murmured in his ear. Unsure of what to do, unsure of what to say, Keith just looped his arms around her torso and applied only the gentlest of pressure. 

Still standing in the doorway, Shiro caught his eye and gave him a smile and a thumbs up. 

Keith smiled back. 

**Author's Note:**

> We near the end of the bingo card... then it's time for Gentron


End file.
